Chapter 3

Devin woke sprawled on top of a thundering mountain. Heat baked into her skin, driving the cold from her bones. Something large and wide pushed her into the incredible hardness that spread beneath most of her body.

Prying her lashes apart, Devin peered at the swath of dark ochre skin her cheek rested against. The rich red-brown and the smattering of black hair rubbing her cheek were somehow a comfort. His arm curled around her, the width of his palm applying firm strokes over her back, even more so. Rolling her gaze around the limited view, she took in more of her surroundings. Rey had created a haphazard burrow for her, the blankets a messy tumble over the top of her head with too many gaps letting light filter in.

Still, it was almost sweet.

Devin snarled, shoving at the breadth of his chest. Tumbling herself from the lofty heights of his body to scramble across the bed with the blankets clutched in front of her as some sort of shield. Fixing the nastiest sneer upon her lips she could scrape up from the pervasive languor, Devin glared at the Alpha who looked far more shocked than angry.

Her rage only grew as he held up his hands. A pathetic insistence he wasn’t a threat as he worked his way up the bed to lounge in careless arrogance against the tufted headboard. Circumspect with the dark chestnut of his gaze, he gave her space.

The seconds stretched by like hours. Devin’s bunched muscles grew weary, trembling before growing lax under the assault of the lingering heat bundled around her. The nasty twist of her lips faded, and the corners of her mouth tugged into a frown that broadcast her confusion. He made no move to challenge the glare she continued to slash in his direction, though Devin was hard pressed to keep it centered solely on him.

“Coffee?”

The rough huskiness of his question danced down her spine, trying to make her shiver at the incredible timbre. Devin curled tight around the warmth spreading through her middle, refusing to acknowledge it as she turned her eyes away in haughty disdain to the blank wall. She ignored the Alpha to deny the sensations he incited.

“All right,” Rey murmured, the whisper of skin across the sheets daring her to look back. “I’m going to go make some. Your soap is still in the shower if you want to take one.”

What she wanted was a giant red reverse button. Something that would take her back years and years ago where she could set herself on a far different path, one where she never tried so damned hard to get away from everything that would have led to a simple, quiet life. One where she’d just accepted her fate and settled for what little protection that could have afforded her.

The ragged sob burst free without warning, tears flowing down her cheeks in a sudden rush. Devin scrambled from the bed, racing for the frail privacy of the bathroom. She fell to the floor as she tangled in the sheets, and again when she tripped over her own feet.

Slamming the door shut with her back pressed hard against the smooth wood, she waited for him to burst in. She couldn’t hear a damned thing over the wretched cries grating from her throat as they echoed through the room. One thundering heartbeat after the next, he didn’t appear. Not when she slid down to cry into her knees, or when she lay on her side hiccupping through the last of her tears on the cold tiles.

Even when she crawled into the shower and the pounding spray announced her actions, he stayed away.

Looking through the vanity, linen closet, and shower, she understood why he gave her such privacy. Not a single razor, no chemical cleansers, nothing she could use to hurt herself or anyone else unless she intended to break the large mirror or shower door. Even then, the shatter of glass would no doubt bring him running.

Devin emerged a long time later, feeling no better for having washed away the last of his scent from her skin. Coated in the muted tones of citrus and herbs and clothed in more towels than one person needed, she blinked at the clothes dangling from a hanger on the front of the wardrobe. They were hers. The worn jeans and baggy t-shirt were from her own closet. Covered in plastic, a professional had laundered them.

It seemed years ago since Beau forced her to wear the skimpy costumes he demanded.

Devin couldn’t hide her surprise as she tugged the thin film away. Wherever he’d taken them, they’d done a good job. The clothes were flat, lifeless. Not even a hint of the workers who handled them. It must have cost a small fortune. How he’d managed to get her things was another question. She’d figured her apartment lost and her few belongings piled at the curb in a humiliating disarray by now.

Cracking open the closed bedroom door, Devin found even more surprises waiting for her. He’d removed the couch and rug from the living room. Rey lounged in a chair built for an Alpha’s bulk, a steaming mug cupped between his palms as he brooded over the dark liquid.

Something urged her to stop, pausing in the doorway as she looked at him as if for the first time.

How had she never noticed the warm russet threading through the darkness of his damp hair? The quiet grace of him at once familiar and alien as he sipped at the steaming coffee. He was shorter than many of the Alphas she’d come across, but it made him no less intimidating. Broad shoulders, thick muscles bunching his arms. Even beneath the snug fit of the shirt he wore, she knew the pattern of his strength. The feel of the scars that marked the decadent red-brown of his skin.

Scoffing in disgust at her thoughts, Devin brought attention to herself. Rey’s dark brows bounced once, a question lingering deep in his gaze, though he hid it away before she could examine it further. She didn’t want to find any part of him pleasing. Grabbing hold of the fact she knew his body so well because he used her at her most vulnerable, that he’d stolen away something she’d never get back, Devin clung to her vitriol.

Rey grunted, no doubt sensing the change in her mood from the acrid bite of it in the air. He rose with stealthy ease, long strides taking him to the kitchen. Shattering her anger with heavy-handed surprise when he poured a cup of coffee and doctored it just the way she had last time she’d been in this place.

He didn’t approach. Knew better by the twitch at the corner of his lips as he set the mug down on the firm surface of the ottoman before taking his chair again. A lazy threat that showed no urgency as he went back to sipping at his black coffee, denying her his attention for the moment in the illusion of safety.

She needed caffeine. That’s what she told herself as she skittered around the now odd grouping to take the chair opposite him. Curling into a tight ball, she clutched the hot mug close. Weapon and sanity both, she took a careful sip.

Perfection.

He let Devin get halfway through the cup before he ruined it. She realized he must have been watching the entire time, waiting for her to relax, to let her legs drop aside to a far more comfortable position as she snuggled into the oversized chair.

“We’re leaving in an hour. I have business I can’t delay.”

He seemed almost apologetic, as if she’d been a party to plans that were now changed. Devin snorted, hiding the curl of her lips behind the mug. That was why he gave her clothing, why he told her to shower. He intended to take her out into public and couldn’t have these people distracted by his latest acquisition. Leaving her alone in the apartment wasn’t anywhere on his radar.

“What time is it,” Devin asked in a hoarse croak. The coffee had done nothing to improve her mood, her crying destroying what little the sleep had accomplished to bolster her resolve.

“Eleven.” Rey raised his chin at the clock ticking away above the kitchen island. Keeping his every action simple, restrained.

Trying not to scare her.

The dark arches of her brows slid down into a scowl as she stared at the plain, white face of the cheap clock. Not something she would have seen him purchasing, it must have been here when he bought the place. It looked a lot like the one she’d hung in her apartment, though far cleaner and missing the cracked plastic over the face. Dragging her thoughts back to center, she realized what seemed more wrong than the Alpha with expensive tastes owning a cheap wall clock.

“In the morning?”

“At night.”

Devin’s wide blue eyes slanted towards Rey, a heavy line forming between her eyebrows. It’d been the dead of night the last she remembered. The jumbled snippets of her memory were a hopeless puzzle, but that much she recalled. The cool night air on her bare skin, the bite of gravel at the dark pier. Neon lights brilliant and garish at some point.

“You slept the day away,” Rey said, giving her the missing piece with all the care of a sledgehammer.

“Yeah, I get it.” Snapping at the Alpha didn’t change the fact she’d been in that bed for hours. That she’d no doubt snuggled with the man for as long as he’d been in there with her.

Gods, how she wished she’d dared to shatter that mirror now.

“You still need to eat.” Dropped into the tense silence of her disquiet, he went on to destroy whatever good humor she might have had towards him with reckless abandon. “I’d planned on taking you somewhere after, but we’ll get something now. You’ll feel better once you have some food on your stomach.”

Devin sucked in a breath to scream at the male, to let him know in no uncertain terms that he had no idea what could ever make her feel better. Her body betrayed her with as much consideration as a wrecking ball. Stomach growling loud and long at the very idea of sustenance, saliva pooled in her mouth as visions of real food danced in her mind’s eye.

Worse still, she let him pull her from the chair, failing to track his approach entirely. Tugged against his side, his arm slung in a possessive cage around her hips, he guided her towards the door and the world beyond with nothing but her bare feet and his sure hold on her side to keep her in check.

It worked.

Devin didn’t struggle as he led her into the elevator, not a peep as he guided her through the pale, glittering lobby past far too many people. Once situated in the car, she kept quiet as he buckled her in, as if she was incapable of even that. Sinking into the buttery leather warming beneath her as he fiddled with controls, Devin gathered all the many moments of her life where she’d been more than capable. Sifting through them, she reminded herself of a time when she’d needed no one.

* * *

Devin poked her bare toes into the driver’s seat cushion, groaning at the warmth radiating into her skin. He’d left her in the car, the fob safe in his pocket just far enough away she couldn’t make out the details of the men he spoke with. Crowded in the shadows, they huddled together with swift cuts of their arms through the air and the low rise and fall of their voices reaching her even from this distance.

Stuffing another tater tot smothered in ketchup into her mouth, Devin considered the shifting shadows. She had no idea what business this might entail, but the fact he’d purred for her when they rounded a turn to take them to the docks meant it couldn’t be good. Wondering how much he knew of what Beau had tried to do, Devin smacked another packet of ketchup against her thigh. She cursed when she dropped it onto the floorboard.

While she might have left it and used one of the dozen others scattered over her lap, Rey had made it clear he expected his car to remain clean while letting her eat in it. She hadn’t opened the packet yet. It would be fine down there until he returned, and she could retrieve it. Yet she still squinted at the shadowy roof and reached up to flip the light on.

Devin leaned as far as she dared with her bounty of tots and remaining cheeseburger sitting on her lap, feeling around in the dimness for her lost ketchup.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Rey snarled, voice pitched to a distant thunder as he wrenched the passenger door open.

Devin spilled out onto the gravel, everything tumbling from her lap to litter the seat and ground. Her muted wail at the loss brought more attention, the crunch of multiple feet coming ever nearer.

“Gods damn it,” Rey growled under his breath, hauling Devin up by her arm. Jerking her against him with a possessive arm, he added in a breath of a whisper, “Not a single word.”

“What the hell is this?”

Devin cowered from the power in that voice. A blaring alarm of instinct told her not to draw its attention. She pressed closer still to Rey, hiding in the folds of his jacket, tucking herself away in his shadow as that smoky voice settled over her back.

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Rey said, pushing Devin’s face into the tensed muscles of his arm. “It’s not a problem.”

“The hell it ain’t,” another voice added in a rough growl.

“You’re trying my patience, Daniel. Who is she?”

“Just a bit of fun, sir. She’ll keep her mouth shut.” To underline the subtle command, Rey gripped the back of Devin’s neck, crushing the small bones under his heavy hand.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” the raspy voice said, a glimpse of the bent and twisted man enough to curdle Devin’s stomach. Scarred face below a black knit cap, rheumy brown eyes followed a slimy path down her body. “Unless you’re passing her ‘round to make it worth my while.”

Devin didn’t even breathe as Rey broke away from her. She could only watch in stunned silence as he picked the man up by his greasy shirt front, lifting him high to growl in the lesser Alpha’s face.

“You’ll do as you’re told, Turk. We hired you for a job. If you can’t manage to do that, well then, I have no use for you, do I?”

“Easy now, Rey,” Turk wheezed with arms pinwheeling as Rey gave him a rough shake in mid-air. “Just having some fun, yeah? I’ll do it, boss. No problems.”

Rey sneered and dropped Turk, a hard shove sending the old man stumbling and sliding through the loose rock. Devin swallowed hard as Rey stalked back to her, each step as sure as the last, despite the shifting pebbles. When Rey opened his arm, she went to him under the steady green gaze of the Alpha oozing power and dominance.

“I don’t like surprises, Daniel. Let’s not have this happen again,” the terrifying man said in a low murmur, the shine on his shoes flashing in the dead orange glow of the sodium lights as he went back to the rows of crates.

“Stay quiet,” Rey hissed in a whisper at Devin’s crown as he took her with him. Keeping her tight against his side, he came alongside the man he called ‘sir.’

Turk appeared with a crowbar, nodding at the other men who had scattered back into the shadows at the show of strength. In short order, they had five of the crates opened, their contents shining under the thin light amid bunches of hay and cottony fluff.

“Eight crates of munitions, ten of the higher techs,” Rey said, cupping a hand over Devin’s ear as if to keep her from hearing. “The first shipment of paintings is going over this time, but we won’t be able to arrange the next ones until the borders have calmed down.”

“I thought we settled that with the last payoff?”

“New regime. Most of our guys are still in place, but there’s a handful of new faces.”

“And the rest?”

Rey cleared his throat, giving it all away with a single glance down at Devin’s bowed head.

“Over here, Mr. Kahler,” Rey murmured, leading them all to a massive shipping container situated on the faded boards beside the dock proper.

The screech of metal grinding against metal crunched through her teeth. It drew her gaze as a wave of fetid air tried to knock her over. Devin sucked in her lips, biting down hard. Fingers clawing at Rey’s back, she twisted the soft material of his shirt as she tried to unsee what little the weak lights illuminated, to not think of what else could be in the container.

It was an impossible feat. Not as the clank of chains rattled through her bones, their pitiful whines and tears cutting right to Devin’s soul. Dozens of Omegas in various stages of damage and undress. Rows of them lying on the cold metal, staggering in tight circles at the end of their shackles. Packed in the container like refuse.

“Looks light,” the man named Kahler murmured.

“Ten short of our promised,” Rey said in agreement, squeezing Devin’s neck all the harder. Trying to turn her horrified eyes away from the sight unfolding before her. “Marcus said he can top it off when he gets these.”

“And now I will owe him. Why are we short, Daniel?”

“We lost a lot in the bad batch of suppressants. It was too damn public. Others are poaching in the areas we shop in, but we’re handling that. Shouldn’t be a problem again.”

“You better make sure it isn’t.” Kahler gave a quiet chuckle and a shake of his head, two careless fingers waved at the hulking metal box. “All right, close it all up, get it out of here. I want you to see to the inspectors personally next month. I’ll be otherwise engaged.”

“It surprised me you decided to come this time.”

Kahler grunted, a terrifying smile sliding over his lips as he turned back to Rey in the shifting shadows. “It can’t all be fun and games, Daniel. There’s always work to be done.”

Rey waited until Kahler and his expensive car were well out of sight before he released a ragged breath. Turk and his men were loading the last of the crates before Rey relaxed his bruising hold on Devin’s nape. He watched until the lumbering ship eased away from the dock out into the open water of the bay, its lights spilling gold onto the rippling water.

Then he rounded on Devin. Picking her up by the shoulders and shaking her hard enough her brains rattled around her skull. Snarling and growling, he hissed curses at her. Telling her how lucky she was Kahler hadn’t put her into the container, how he would have let it happen for her stupidity. Berating her with every step back to the car, he launched into another tirade at the state of his seats.

“Clean it up,” Rey yelled, dumping Devin amid the greasy remains of her meal beside the open car door.

Lower lip trembling, Devin did as she was told. The faces of all those men and women swam in her watery gaze as she picked sesame seeds and crumbs from the fine stitched leather. The smell of their unwashed bodies, the soured sweetness of their sheer terror and the chemicals being pumped into them to keep them quiet and pliant.

He would let that happen to her. Had watched on as Beau did much the same. She’d let this man touch her, comfort her, and he would throw her away like so much trash.

Devin spun on her knees and vomited onto the cold ground.

Rey voiced a roar that flattened Devin, cowering before the power of it until he shoved her up into the seat. Vicious threats of what would happen if she threw up in his car followed her in before he slammed the door on her. Devin buckled her belt as fast as she could, fumbling with the latch as her hands shook. She didn’t want him to touch her, to come anywhere near her. Her shoulders hunched to her ears as he growled his displeasure at her actions.

The silent drive back to his apartment was fraught with so much tension, Devin wondered at the fact she didn’t get sick again. It pounded against her temples, twisting around her spine. Threatening to dissolve her into tears at any moment, only the fear of what he would do kept her from collapsing. He snapped at the people working in the lobby, snarling at the man who did nothing more than push the button of the elevator.

Throat dry, she tried to swallow back the scream clawing at her throat as he shoved her into the apartment and locked the door. It escaped in a worthless croak as his hand slapped down on her shoulder. Whirling her around, she stumbled against him, lifted into the air before she could get her bearings.

The crush of his lips was painful, refusing to be denied.

Dangling in his arms as he assaulted her with teeth and tongue, his sure steps carried them to the bedroom. Devin closed her eyes and prayed.